Innovations

USDA launching major hoop house study
Jan. 13, 2010, Washington – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan has announced a new pilot project under the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative for farmers to establish high tunnels – also known as hoop houses – to increase the availability of locally grown produce in a conservation-friendly way.

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Greenhouse grower notes: Starting a biocontrol program?
Back in the summer of 2009, I wrote the first in what was to be a series of articles on how to plan, set up and implement a biocontrol program in your greenhouse. The original plan was that each article would follow quite closely on the heels of the previous one. However, the best laid plans.…

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Compost from sewage sludge no slouch
Jan. 4, 2010 – Sewage sludge can be successfully converted into compost that can enhance growth and flowering of landscape plants, according to recent research in Malaysia.

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Killing poinsettias with kindness
Dec. 23, 2009, Overton, Texas – After East Texas growers take great pains to produce beautiful poinsettias, plants free of diseases and pests that could live for years, most consumers will take the plants home and kill them within a couple of weeks due to improper care, according to Texas AgriLife Extension Service experts.

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Eliminating Rhizoctonia from azalea cuttings with hot water
Dec. 31, 2009 – Rhizoctonia, a fungal disease that can be found in many ornamental plants, can be eliminated in azalea by placing plant cuttings in a hot water treatment, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist in the U.S. and his university collaborator have found.

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Helping reduce vegetable ‘transplant shock’
Dec. 22, 2009 – Dr. Daniel Leskovar, a plant physiologist at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Uvalde, has been investigating ways to help vegetable plants make a less stressful transition from the greenhouse to the field.

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Emerald Coast Growers welcomes Friel
Dec. 23, 2009, Pensacola, Fla – Emerald Coast Growers has hired John Friel as its marketing manager. Friel brings over 30 years’ experience in the greenhouse industry to his new position.

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New research facilities at Brooks
Dec. 3, 2009, Brooks, Alberta – Since the groundbreaking ceremony in the summer of 2008 for the re-construction of a new research greenhouse at the Crop Diversification Centre South in Brooks, building has progressed on all three of the new buildings in the complex.

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